Appleworks Update 6.2.9

Question

My trouble began when I tried to convert a word document to Appleworks. No such luck! So I downloaded the update (as above). The update does not recognize my Appleworks. I tried the disk utility and discovered that it is damaged. Some have suggested that I invest in iwork but I am just as personal user not a business owner.
Text edit persists in opening the word doc. but the doc. is distorted. That is there is no image, and various announcements are not where they are supposed to be.
I need to work on these documents. Any suggestions?
Thanks

Answer 1

Hi,
A variety of information here—I'll intersperse some comments (and rearrange things a bit for clarity).
For some reason, appleworks6 opens in OS 10.4.11 BUT there is a 9 on the white bar near the language flag. I assume the 9 indicates that Appleworks is operating in system 9 as opposed to system 10.
I don't think that 9 indicates OS 9. On my iBook, running AW 6 (with no document open) in OS 9 (in the Classic environment) the menu bar is grey, not white, and contains only the rainbow Apple logo, AppleWork's File, Edit, Window, Script and Help menus, an empty space, then the time and an AppleWorks icon (the Application menu) separated by a vertical bar. Clicking the bar toggles the Application menu display between icon only and icon followed by application name. My G3 iMac, running OS 9 directly, shows the same menu bar with AppleWorks 6 running and no document open. Note that the Input menu ("language flag") is an OS X only feature, and does not appear in OS 9.
I have done as you have directed but the pop up menu does not include anything resembling your "show package content" I have used the restore CD to give me another appleworks but nothing changed.
I'm mystified. What are the first five items in the popup menu when you do this? (The first word, or even the first three letters of each item are enough.) If you Get Info on the item (Click on it once, then press command-I, or go File > Get Info), what does the Get Info window tell you beside the category "Kind:"?
When I use NeoOffice, it opens in the New Document (writing) view. When I go and get the Word doc. a little square named table appears and as a result there is more lines on the doc. page. The document is a form with boxes in it and that may be confusing to the program. I know I got it right once but every since, the table thing appears.
It's possible the Word translator in NeoOffice doesn't handle the boxes well. I suspect the same would be true with a Word > AppleWorks translator as well, as, to my understanding, AW and Word handle inserted objects quite differently. The problem of differing pagination is at least partly due to different metrics between the same font in the Mac and Windows versions. I ran into that today with a form created in MS Word and opened in NeoOffice. This was a simple document with no inserted boxes or graphics. I haven't checked to find out if the filled in form went back to a single page on the Windows machine that it came from.
One of the letters I refer to is one that admits that after the update 6.2.9 one cannot get word. I followed directions to the letter but no go.
That may have more to do with changes to Word's file format than changes to AppleWorks. AW 6 was released in 2000, and most recently came with translators for Word (Win) 6, 95 and for Word (Win)97, 2000, XP and 2002. MS recently adopted a new file format for Word files, and AW does not ahve translators for that format.
If doing so doesn't raise any issues that cause discomfort, you might want to email me a copy of the file to check how it behaves with AW and NeoOffice (and some other applications) on my machine. My address is available in my profile—click my name beside this post to get there.
Regards,
Barry